In Blog Post, Guest Post

Universal to Ubiquitous

If you’d asked me before this week’s SDVoE LIVE! show, I probably could have come up with an approximation of the Wikipedia definition for USB – “Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables and connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers.” I might have even known the words behind the acronym, but I had no idea how hot a topic this is now in pro AV.  Frankly, my primary concern is usually unearthing one of the many adapters and cables laying around my home and office when it comes time to charge a growing number of gadgets.

Watching “So You Think You Know USB? ”, I found out that I really didn’t. Who better than Tavis Sparrow, from Icron Technologies, the leaders in extending and switching solutions for USB, to bring us up to date on the state of the market.  In the last decade of pro AV, USB has exploded from a protocol for keyboards and thumb drives to a critical part of AV infrastructure. Cameras, microphones and speakers regularly connect via USB to provide the “bring your own meeting” experience. He talked about whether USB3 is just faster USB2 or something more, what USB-C does and why it matters, and why USB is so hard to extend. We even got some hints about USB4. We saw a snippet of the latest SDVoE Academy course, redundantly with the same name, which also features Tavis “So You Think You Know USB?

Justin and Matt gave us their take on a couple news articles, including one with the intriguing title of “North America USB Device Market Forecast to 2027 – COVID-19 Impact and Regional Analysis By Device Standard Type, Product, Connector Type, and Applications”. Visit SDVoE Academy for the recorded episode and the resource links.

In the aftershow, Tavis was inundated with great questions from our biggest live audience ever.

Next up on SDVoE LIVE!

On May 18, join us for “Digital Canvas: The Modern Classroom” with industry expert, media personality, and professor Gary Kayye.

Today’s students live in a vastly different world of technology than the generations before them. Consuming content on multiple screens simultaneously is, for them, the norm. Gary shows us that the future is happening now. In the modern classroom, the display is not a single monitor or projector connected to a single video source, but a complete digital canvas on which content may be positioned. Where traditional presentation systems ask “which single content do you want on the single display,” this new approach to presentation asks “which content is most important right now,” leaving other content on screen for context and background, ready to be called to the front at a moment’s notice.

Gary’s worked in technology branding and marketing for more than 25 years. He was the founder of Kayye Consulting, a technology consulting company, and currently serves as president and CEO of rAVe [Publications], a publishing and digital strategy and communications company that he founded in 2003. Prior to that, he served as the vice president of sales and marketing for Extron and a VP at AMX Corporation. Gary’s been the keynote speaker at over 1000 technology shows and events because of his extensive marketing and branding expertise as well as his entertaining and approachable speaking style. He has either assisted or helped create a number of branding campaigns for dozens of tech companies (including brands like Cisco, NEC, HP, InFocus, Sony and even the University of North Carolina) and has even served as an expert witness in branding court cases. In addition, he also teaches classes, leads workshops and writes about technology and the future of advertising, marketing and public relations. Gary is recognized as a social media and new media technology expert, especially in the B2B markets.

In case you missed it

Previous episodes of SDVoE LIVE!, the aftershows and additional resources are waiting for you, whenever you have time to indulge.  Sign up for a free SDVoE Academy account, if you don’t already have one.

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